Pending crop insurance claims to be paid by March-end: Raj minister

Rajasthan Agriculture Minister Lalchand Kataria said on Wednesday that the pending amount of insurance claims of farmers till 2020 would be paid by March 31 under the Prime Minister Crop Insurance Scheme.

Kataria informed the House that the state's share had also been deposited under the scheme. He said payment by insurance companies could not be made on time due to discrepancies in showing the average yield.

The minister was replying to supplementary questions asked in this regard by the MLAs during the question hour.

He said that the insurance claim amount would be paid in the next 10 days for rabi 2018-19 in Churu district.

The agriculture minister informed that for kharif 2019, Rs 1.50-crore insurance claim of 1,153 farmers of Kota, Ajmer, Jalore and Sawai Madhopur had been remitted to their account on Monday.

He said the pending insurance amount was being paid continuously to the farmers. In kharif 2020, Rs 900 crore had been deposited as the state premium.

Earlier, in a written reply to the question of MLA Divya Maderna, Kataria said no insurance claims of farmers for rabi 2017-18 and kharif 2018 were pending with insurance companies under the crop insurance scheme.

He tabled the subdivision-wise list of pending insurance claims of rabi 2018-19, kharif 2019 and rabi 2019-20.

He said in these pending claim cases, the state's premium had been paid in the past.